1、CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress Legal SidebarLegal Sidebari i Can Mass Shooting Victims Sue the United States? October 17, 2019 Several weeks after the police arrested Dylann Roof for unlawfully possessing a controlled substance, Roof tried to buy a semiautomatic ha
2、ndgun. Under existing law, this previous arrest should have disqualified Roof from obtaining that weapon. However, the FBIby its own admissioncommitted oversights while performing Roofs background check. As a result, Roof successfully purchased the firearm despite his prior arrest. Roof then killed
3、nine people with that handgun in a racially motivated attack on a South Carolina church. Several of Roofs victims (or their estates) sued the United States, seeking to hold the federal government liable for failing to prevent Roof from purchasing the firearm he used in the shooting. In its August 30
4、, 2019 opinion in Sanders v. United States, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (Fourth Circuit) rejected the United Statess request to dismiss the victims case. Sanders may be significant to Congress not only due to the national attention surrounding Roofs case, but also because the li
